Overcome your fears

December 6, 2008

When I was a kid I was terrified of falling asleep and that my hand, by carelessness or relaxation, drop
out of my bed and rubbed the floor. The reason was that, as I recall, when I was a few years old I saw a
"monster", an entity or "bug", of those that children see, that was coming to "eat my hand" (or who knows
what it was coming for, the thing is that it was sneaking under the door of my room and was pouncing on
me). Because of that fear and what I was seeing on those young years, for some time I had to sleep being
sure that no part of my body would stand out of my bed.

When I had a little more consciousness, as I grew older, I began to think that the only way to check if the
"monster" was still waiting to attack me in my dreams was to put him a bait. If I wanted to overcome the
fear of night attacks I had to stand up and give him a good beating if I had the opportunity to do so, so I
started to sleep again leaving an arm hanging on purpose that almost grazed the ground. Neither the first
night, nor the second, nor any of the following, the "monster" of my first years appeared on my placid
nights of rest. The fact of being able to fall asleep leaving the arm hanging made me realize from then on
that I was no longer afraid of anything that could appear even if it had a very bug face.

Our deepest fears are our biggest obstacle

We all have fears, phobias and apprehensions: fear of public speaking, fear of relating to people, fear of
success (a most common one), fear that things will go well, afraid of being loved, afraid of being harmed,
and so I could go on for days. These fears are hidden in our mental and emotional body, at subconscious
and unconscious level, and block us until someone or something brings them to the surface and makes it
patent. The worst thing that someone can do is to bring out a part of us that we don't want to face, because
that means seeing it suddenly reflected at a conscious level and having to deal with something that we
would want well-buried within us. However there is no greater obstacle to our personal development than
not wanting to face and overcome that wall that we ourselves have built internally in most cases.

Identifying our greatest fear

The first step to overcome something is to identify it. It's not a matter of suddenly diving in and seek all
that we have buried inside us, so the idea is to select that which at this moment is creating us most
prejudice (for not allowing us to improve or advance in one or more areas of our life). Maybe you're
terrified of going out to meet new people and that's turning you into a loner, maybe being afraid of public
speaking is blocking your career chances, maybe your fear of getting hurt is making your relationship not
working well at 100%. Identify what is now blocking you most and write it down.

Assuming our fear is the first step to overcome it

There is a technique called EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) that has had much success due to,
among other things, that it teaches us to assume what we want to overcome. The idea is to repeat
(mentally, aloud and/or in a written form) something like: despite that I'm afraid of XXXX, I accept
myself completely and deeply, I accept myself as I am... etc. Any variant of the previous sentence will
work. The idea is to bring to the conscious mind what we want to face, and of course eliminate. Once it
has come out of the darkness of our subconscious, we already have won the first battle of our "war".

Search for the causes (not so) apparent of that fear

What induces us to behave like this or to have that fear we can not control? If it is really something very
deep rooted, a phobia, a deep trauma, etc., the inner work that we will have to do is much longer and
serious than if it is something moderately transient of which we have clearly identified its cause. If we are
not able to work through it by ourselves, we can seek help in disciplines such as personal coaching, some
type of therapy, alternatives such as hypnotism or regressions, etc. Knowing the root of the problem is
more than winning a battle, it's almost like giving the final thrust to the opposing army general.
Face it and get over it

Finally the next step is to recreate a situation in which before we felt paralysed or afraid to act: make that
conference in front of 100 people, go to a bar and talk to strangers, express your deepest feelings to
whomever you want them to know, open up to prosperity and abundance. It takes a certain amount of
courage and value, but it's your only alternative if you really want to get over it. The time it takes for you
to get to feel comfortable when you first felt terrified is not important, what is important are two things:
the method or technique you will have learnt about how to go eliminating internal barriers, and the
confidence of knowing that no matter what you have inside, it can be overcomed.